


75/25

by brandywine421



Series: Unfinished AUs of Flail (aka fail) [17]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-10-05 20:53:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10316768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brandywine421/pseuds/brandywine421
Summary: "There's something about him, Matt," she said, a breath of perfume cluing him in that she'd turned to face him. "The longer he stays in that place, the more people are going to notice. The nurses wouldn't have even known about the injuries if they hadn't seen the blood - he'd already healed before the blood had cooled on the floor."Matt considered it. "You think he's - ""You don't want to know what I think," she said after a moment too long.He waited. He may be blind, but he was still capable of glaring."I think he's important. I think he's someone that nobody else should find until he gets his memory back - they - you know what they do to people they think have powers," Claire said, her mouth snapping closed with a click of her teeth.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm doing a major amnesty fic-dump since I'm currently quicksand when it comes to writing.
> 
> In the old days when I read a lot of bandom, this was called 'not-fic', I think. The **show my notes because those parts only live in my head.
> 
> I love this story so much, guys, it's probably the furthest I've ever gotten going for Nano and it's been in-progress for years and I need it to be posted and forgotten for a while.
> 
> It'll make sense once you get about halfway through, I promise.

## start

  
**So, what had happened was - Daredevil was patrolling and shit and he hears this commotion and finds this beat-down bloody guy in an alley. Instead of sticking around to investigate, he takes the guy to Claire's hospital. Things have been weird since Captain America was assassinated on international TV. There's an Index, Registration is mandatory, things are weird and Matt has suspicions that this guy is powered so he defaults to Claire. The guy doesn't seem to know where he is or what's going on but he's spouting Latin prayers and is pretty terrified. He's wearing a St. Christopher's medal and eventually gives his name as Christopher.

  
Then these little bits happen because the guy turns out to be an amnesiac.

 

## psych ward

"Sound gets to him. He's really oversensitive," Claire said quietly. "He was in the rehab center three days before they caught him trying to stab out his eardrums."

"Shit," Matt hissed. "Is he - "

"I brought him some sound-canceling headphones and as long as the battery doesn't run dead on the Ipod, he's doing okay. There's something about him, Matt," she said, a breath of perfume cluing him in that she'd turned to face him. "The longer he stays in that place, the more people are going to notice. The nurses wouldn't have even known about the injuries if they hadn't seen the blood - he'd already healed before the blood had cooled on the floor."

Matt considered it. "You think he's - "

"You don't want to know what I think," she said after a moment too long.

He waited. He may be blind, but he was still capable of glaring.

"I think he's important. I think he's someone that nobody else should find until he gets his memory back - they - you know what they do to people they think have powers," Claire said, her mouth snapping closed with a click of her teeth.

"What do you want to do about it? He's a little big to fit in your apartment," Matt noted.

 

 

**So, then what had happened - Christopher moves in with Matt.

 

 

## houseguest

  
"Christopher? Are you here?"

"All the lights are off," Foggy said a moment before Christopher answered from the kitchen.

Matt could feel Foggy's scolding glare and followed the voice into the kitchen. He smelled food but nothing that he remembered having in his kitchen and definitely nothing from the restaurants within delivery distance.

"Hey. You guys look tired, do you want a sandwich? The sisters let me have some leftovers to take home," Christopher said brightly. It sounded like he was in the far corner, no chair, but denim against tile.

"The sisters?" Matt asked before Foggy could get it out.

"Oh. Yeah. I know you told me not to go anywhere, but I figured church would be okay. I helped them at the soup kitchen. I learned a lot," Christopher added. "Sister Harriett even loaned me her library card so I could so some reading."

"In the dark. Just because Matt doesn't use lights doesn't mean you can't - and you can't eat from the soup kitchen because you're not homeless," Foggy said.

"I don't even have a real name, that's almost worse than homeless," Christopher replied. "And I was hungry, I can't eat all Matt's food when he's already letting me sleep here."

"Christopher, you're my guest and you're welcome to eat and use my electricity, it's part of the deal," Matt said. "I'm sorry I didn't spell it out more clearly."

"I can't stay in the apartment the whole time or I'll go even crazier. I used Claire's headphones when I went outside and I didn't do anything wrong," Christopher's voice dropped lower with every word.

Foggy huffed. "Nobody's saying you did anything wrong, Matt's just shitty with houseguests and babysitting."

"I'm grateful for a place to stay outside of the hospital, I don't need anything else. Once I get - " he hesitated. "Once I get my head together, I'll be on my way."

Matt went cold at the thought of the guy out on his own.

"It's been, what, one day since you got out? Don't get any ideas," Foggy said. "What kind of sandwiches?"

 

 

 

**So, then what had happened - Christopher hangs out with the Hell's Kitchen crew. He temps for Matt, answers phones for Jessica, helps Luke at his bar (he still has a bar in this 'verse.).

 

  
## minders

"Malcolm, that's Christopher. I'm pet-sitting for Murdock today."

Christopher silently gave her the middle finger and Malcolm smiled. He was actually functional enough today to tuck it back down before Jessica swiveled around to glare at him.

"Oh, sure, Claire told me about you. Amnesia, right?" Malcolm asked, offering his hand to shake.

"Yeah. Until your boss can get me some valid ID, I'm under house arrest," Christopher said. He didn't think he'd last another day at Matt's office filing papers while Karen ran the errands that went on outside of the boring walls.

 

**So, then what had happened - Christopher and Matt start a relationship, casually, and are on and off (because Matt) and he decides he's healthy enough and ready to find out where he came from and search for answers. He knows Matt, who is totes protective, wouldn't let him be involved so he goes to Jessica and Luke to start.

 

  
## truth found

"I don't want to go in there," Christopher said, stopping outside of the next door.

Jessica glared at him. "Don't be a pussy."

His bright blue eyes flared with annoyance. "That's offensive."

"Jessica defaults to offensive, Christopher," Luke snorted behind him.

"If you really want your memory back, you're going to have to suck it up," Jessica reminded him. Fuck, Matt was going to kick all their asses for this; but Christopher wasn't a bird in a golden cage, he was a grown man.

His nostrils flared but he didn't protest again before she tried and failed to snap the hatch off the hinges. She frowned but Christopher reached past her and yanked, bending the steel enough that she could kick it open completely.

It was some kind of lab and it was still running. A wave of decay hit her nose and she doubted there would be anyone alive if it smelled like this. "Hang back a minute."

"Thank God," Christopher muttered.

She counted at least ten bodies in the outer room. The inner room was constructed out of some kind of glass or plastic and too splattered with blood to see through easily. Monitors flashed with code and logorithms she wouldn't be able to understand even if she'd gone to college because math, who needs it.

Somebody needed it to have so many computers up and running and so many dead bodies left behind.

"Jesus," Luke hissed.

"Don't let him in here," she whispered.

"He went to keep watch at the base of the stairs," Luke replied. "What the hell is this?"

She cursed herself and the plan when she recognized the HYDRA insignia stamped on all the equipment. "For a secret evil organization, they definitely sell their brand," she flicked the file with her nail.

"Shit. This is bigger than we thought. Bigger than we can handle," Luke said, stepping over three decomposing bodies to get to the glass room. "Jess."

She went to his side and examined the huge metal restraints in his hand. "What kind of cuffs are those?"

"The kind guys like me can't even get out of."

Jessica shivered. "Guys like Christopher." She stepped into the room, the blood pooled thick and hard enough to crack like glass under her boot. "Diamond-tipped needles, shit-ton of tranquilizers, by the bag, not syringe style," she rattled off.

"And the chair."

Fuck. Christopher had a panic attack every time he walked by a barber shop or even glimpsed a dental chair on TV. The chair in the center of the room was definitely nightmare bait.

She picked up a chart, tearing off the first blood-black page since it was illegible and scanning the scribbles.

"Three times power, non-conducive to wipe. Subject still shows sign of long-term memory. Surgical intervention required to subdue subject. Trial number 37 scheduled for three days," she read aloud.

"Surgical," Luke whispered, his eyes dark with rage.

"They cut into his brain. They didn't just fuck with his memories, they cut them out," Jessica realized, dropping the chart with the HD photos of the surgery.

"Oh my God. It can't be." Luke's back was to her and she really wasn't sure she wanted to see what would make him sound like that.

He turned and held up a silver emblem. The Avengers. Not the new one, but the one the superheroes wore before Captain America was dead and cold under a pile of dirt in Brooklyn.

"It doesn't mean what you think it means," Jessica said, cold.

"Maybe. But this does," Luke replied, holding up the goddamn shield.

"He died, the world saw him die," Jessica said.

"I took a gunshot to the head once and I turned out okay," Luke murmured. "Someone must've - "

"You'd think his friends would have had a failsafe for his body," Jessica said.

Luke clenched his fists. "Maybe they did. Maybe this was it."

She sucked in a breath. "We need so much more information. We have to get him out of here. We're all in danger no matter what side comes after him."

"Shouldn't we get information from here?" Luke asked.

"We need to get as far away from this as possible," she said, already making plans to come back and collect everything alone.

"Jessica. This is his life," Luke said.

"He's going to take us all down with him," she muttered. "Let's go."

**** *** ** *

"I'm going to head home, I'm supposed to meet Karen to look at some new places," Christopher said, strapping on his helmet.

"Are you still serious about moving out? Chris, it's not safe," Jessica said.

He held her gaze for a long moment. "My name's Christopher. And I already know how safe you think I am, so you can consider your job done."

"Goddamn bat ears," she cursed. "Look - "  
  
He didn't need to hear any more. "I got the point already. I didn't want to find my memory to put people in danger. I learned what I needed."

"What was that?" Luke asked.

"That I'm dangerous with or without it," he said, the glimpse of the bodies in that room enough to fill that in without all the rest. He started his bike to drown out the rest of their words. Matt could apologize for him later.

Matt. He was in enough danger without a dead Avenger shining a spotlight on him. He had to do this right.

An Avenger. A dead one. They didn't need to say the name for him to put the pieces together but he wasn't about to say it out loud, either.

He needed help.

 

  
  
## meeting wanda

"I hope you're sure about this. She's supposed to be the real thing," Karen said. Matt would kill her if this went sideways. But Christopher was her friend, too.

"This is the next step," Christopher said simply.

She should probably ask him more questions about what happened with Jessica earlier to earn a new step on the same day as the last one.

"I'll talk to her first, just to brief her. I don't want her pulling any mojo on you," Karen sighed, pushing open the door to the small shop.

"Welcome, how can we help you today? We have a special on Tarot readings for couples," a spritely boy in way too many scarves greeted them cheerily.

Karen stepped ahead of Christopher as he looked around at the shiny crystals and dream catchers to catch tourists that may have wandered into The Kitchen unattended. "Hi, I called ahead. We're supposed to meet Ms. Maximoff for a private reading," she said. "I'd like to speak with her before I bring my friend, we'll pay extra if necessary."

"She won't lie to him if you get a bad reading solo," the kid said.

"The reading's for him, not me, I'm just moral support," she clarified quietly.

"Ah. Follow me, I'll bring back your friend when the boss gives the all clear."

"I won't touch anything," Christopher smiled at her when she turned to fill him in. Of course with the super-hearing.

She followed the kid through a cliched set of beaded curtains into a room that was immediately warmer than the rest of the space. The psychic once known as The Scarlett Witch sat behind an antique cherry desk watching her with sharp eyes.

The warmth was a trick. "Hi. I'm Karen, Foggy's friend?"

Maximoff nodded indifferently. "I thought you had a friend."

"He's outside," Karen said, shaking off her unease. "I wanted to make sure this was...confidential."

The witch raised an eyebrow.

"Just - he has amnesia. We think his past might be...dangerous. Foggy says we can trust you, but I want to make sure. He deserves the truth but if you see something too horrible, just, go easy on him, please?"

The woman nodded and tapped at her phone with bluntly cut but polished light pink nails. She heard the cheery clerk talking to Christopher a moment before he stepped into the room.

The witch gasped sharply and the walls seemed to ripple with energy.

"Um. Hi, I'm Christopher." He glanced at Karen and held out his hand toward the woman.

"It can't be - you - " she stood up and darted around the desk and seriously invaded Christopher's personal space. Oh shit, Matt was going to kill them both.

"Do you know me?" Christopher asked before she could.

Maximoff turned to Karen. "Amnesia?" Karen nodded.

"I - my name is Wanda. I - I know you, yes."

Christopher's eyes were bright. "I don't remember anything before a few months ago. I turned up in an alley, injured without any memories."

"Let's sit, we need to sit," Wanda said, flicking her fingers toward the wall and dragging over a chair for Karen and one for herself. She sat way too close to Christopher but Karen could tell Wanda was more shaken than they were.

"Can you tell me things? About who I used to be?" Christopher asked softly.

Wanda reached out and took his hand, then both hands in one of hers. "What questions do you have? I promise to answer whatever I can if you will do the same in return. No charge, never, for you."

Karen almost asked how 'well' they knew each other but she held her tongue. Something important was happening here.

Wanda closed her eyes and inhaled. She shuddered as she exhaled before steadying herself.

"Did I have friends?" Christopher asked after a long moment.

She blinked at him, her delicate fingers clenching around his. "Oh, yes, you had...have, you *have* so many friends. You are...missed. So missed. You really do not remember?"

He looked at the floor. "No. I'd like to think I was the kind of man who would have told my friends if I remembered having them."

"He has friends now," Karen said. "Very good friends. Friends that are probably going to kill me for bringing him here if you hurt him."

Wanda looked at him. "I - you feel like him, you are him - but you aren't. What did they do to you?" Her fingers were feather light on his cheek and he shivered but didn't pull away until she made contact with his beard.

"There's a lab," Christopher said. "I didn't go in - there were dead people. I think they'd been dead a while."

"You didn't tell me that," Karen whispered. She'd seen some bad things but nobody wanted that for Christopher.

"It was awful," he said. "I've never seen anything that horrible. I think they shocked me, cut open my brain. I don't remember but I was eavesdropping. Jessica didn't say anything else. Isn't that enough? She said I was dead, that the world saw me die."

Wanda's attention snapped to Karen again. "They don't know who you are?"

"He's Christopher and he's our friend. You can't make him do anything, he's not a bad guy anymore," Karen said, fierce.

"Steve has never been a bad guy," Wanda replied with a flash of red in her eyes. She was strangely fierce, too. He wondered if she was one of the friends.

"I killed those men," Christopher said.

"They cut into your brain. They took your memories, they tried to take your mind," Wanda snapped. "They deserved to die, they deserve worse."

"Back up. You called him Steve," Karen interrupted.

"Jessica and Luke think I'm Captain America," Christopher said.

Karen gasped. "Oh fuck. Matt's going to kill me."

"Who is this Matt person?" Wanda demanded suddenly. "Is he holding you hostage? Is he - "

"He's Christopher's very overprotective boyfriend," Karen said.

"Ex," Christopher reminded her. She rolled her eyes.

Wanda's face blossomed into a grin.

"Like you ever stay mad at him," Karen said. "You know he'll take you back - "

"Out of pity because he still thinks I'm that bumbling idiot he found in that gutter," he said.

Wanda looked at him with wide, ethereal eyes. "Christopher. It is - it's an honor to make your acquaintance."

"Oh. Sure, you, too. Can you - "

"I don't think I can restore your memories, I could only show you my memories, - but they would not be truly yours," she interrupted. "That would not be fair to you."

"I was going to ask if you could tell me about Steve," Christopher smiled.

"Only if you will tell me about Christopher," she replied in a soft voice.

**** *** ** *

"The witch wants to talk," Natasha said, her fingers soft and deadly on his throat.

He swallowed and she followed the line of his neck. "Why do I care?" He twisted sharply and caught her lips in his teeth for a kiss.

"Because she wants to talk alone. She specifically requested that my significant other not be present."

"I'm significant, huh?"

She elbowed him hard in the side and the moment was gone. "Time to work."

He took a deep breath and steeled his raw nerves. Hell, he was always raw, but he needed the scar tissue for Natasha, and for this. "We can't turn Wanda. This whole mess is about to collapse on itself without restarting the war."

"Yeah, you want her outside and hidden for when you make your move," Natasha replied flatly. "You forget that I'm not stupid."

He let out a breath. "What?"

"I meet with her twice a month and she never has to tell me to leave you behind," Natasha blinked coolly. "Get dressed and let's go."

Bucky should have known she knew about Wanda. He hoped she wasn't disappointed. He'd held her for hours, Steve's blood still caked on their skin while she tried to sob out of her skin.

Steve was supposed to know Natasha was playing both sides, they were all supposed to just *realize* that she was spying for Cap, not against him. But Steve hadn't known, he'd died believing that his friend, one of the first he'd truly trusted in his post-ice life, was a traitor. Natasha considered herself damned no matter how many times Bucky told her different.

He caught up with her at the car, his guns holstered and his knives thirsty. "Hey. Wait. It's not like that. I'm not keeping her off the company hunt list for backup."

She raised an eyebrow. "Why not? I am."

Oh.

She checked her gauntlets casually. "Steve let her in his head. Did you know? He thought it was the only way to get her to trust him. Before Registration. Before you were you again. He made her touch his mind, even though the offer would have been enough to convince her."

"No, he wouldn't," Bucky said. "Mind control - he - "

"He trusted her. He knew a team doesn't function without complete trust in each other. It wasn't the last time, either. He was injured in Belarus - "

"I was there," Bucky said. He didn't like to remember that battle. Robots were bastards. Natasha wasn't there for that. She was nipping at Stark's bait by then.

"She took him out of his pain while they put his guts back in his stomach," Natasha said. She met his gaze and her eyes were wet. "She called me a couple of months after the services. After you and I signed up together on stage. She - when she was in his head, she showed him what he wanted to see - and I was there. She wanted me to know that even when I was on the other side of the fight, that he still believed in me. He still..."

"He loved you, Natasha," Bucky said.

She nodded sharply and her nostrils flared. "I know. But Wanda's the only person that's ever believed I loved him back."

**** *** ** *

"I don't know why people think you're scary, you're pretty awesome," Claire said, clinking her beer with Karen and Malcolm in agreement.

Wanda smiled shyly but it darkened as she scanned the room, alert despite her relaxed pose. "I have done bad things."

"We all have," Karen said after a moment. "It doesn't make us bad people."

Claire watched Christopher across the bar, leaning easily against Matt and laughing open-mouthed.

"I lied to him," Wanda said quietly. "He asked if Steve was happy and I told him yes."

"He wasn't happy? But Captain - " Malcolm started, closing his mouth when Wanda shook her head.

"Steve would never allow himself to be happy," she said. "He - the more you love, the more you have to lose. Eventually the grief, the mourning - Steve was never happy. He never had the peace he deserved. He deserves...that."

Matt was cupping Christopher's chin, his thumb smoothing over the neatly trimmed beard and across his bottom lip while Christopher looked down at him with adoring eyes.

"I miss Steve," Wanda said. "But I see that Christopher isn't Steve. I need James and Natasha to see that, too."

"What are you going to do with him?" Claire asked.

Wanda met her eyes. "I wish Christopher no harm."

"But you want your Captain back," Malcolm said. "And that means Christopher dies."

Wanda lowered her gaze. "I wish Christopher no harm. I would give...anything to see Steve again but he - I wouldn't do that. Steve wouldn't want that. He would never want his life valued higher than someone else's."

Claire doubted that Steve could be a nicer guy than Christopher but Wanda idolized him more than she expected.

"I miss him," Wanda whispered.

Claire patted the girl's arm instinctively. "I'm sorry. It must be hard for you to see him."

"He has the same soul. He gives me hope, no matter what name he chooses," Wanda said. "I am in your debt."

"Ours?" Malcolm asked.

"Your people kept him safe. You did not know who he was and still, you helped him," Wanda said.

"Pretty sure you can pay us back by doing the same thing and keeping Christopher safe," Claire said. The woman nodded.

"I don't know about you guys, but I think we need another round," Karen said, waving for Luke's attention at the bar.

**** *** ** *

"You're doing it again," Christopher whispered.

Matt loosened his grip and settled his fingers onto the skin of his hips instead of burying them into the flesh. "Sorry."

"I don't get why you're so worried."

"I don't get why you're not," Matt replied. "You have no idea what you're getting into."

Christopher sighed, his breath hot against his neck. They weren't dancing, but they were swaying enough for it to count. "I wouldn't have agreed to this if I didn't. Everything I have now, everything I love, it's down to you finding and taking me in. I don't want to give any of that up. But - I won't put you in danger. I have to deal with my past, even if I don't remember it, because it remembers me."

"I know. Just - you can't do this by yourself," Matt said.

"Then don't get all weird and help me do it," Christopher smiled, leaning in for a kiss.

"You're sickening. If we had a hose, half the bar would have doused you with it by now."

Matt frowned at the sound of Jessica's snark. She still hadn't earned his forgiveness for sending Christopher running to the witch.

"What do you want, Jessica?" Christopher asked. Apparently he hadn't totally forgiven her yet either.

"That's a list you probably don't want to get into, but I thought you'd want to know the creepy chick's guests are checking the perimeter outside and will probably be inside soon."

"Thank you for the notice," Christopher said. "Anything else?"

"Look, Chris - "

"It's Christopher," Matt said in unison with him. Matt took over, feeling Christopher tense. "You can talk to him later."

"Can I?" Jessica asked pointedly.

Matt hadn't been encouraging Christopher's freeze out but he definitely hadn't discouraged it.

"I'm sorry. You hurt my feelings but I know you didn't mean to. I've got a lot going on and I need to narrow my focus. You and Luke aren't in this."

"We are. We've got your back, Christopher," Jessica said and Matt hated that he believed her. He could sense her genuineness.

"If you make nice with Karen, maybe I'll invite you over when I make stroganoff tomorrow."

"Damn right you're inviting me for stroganoff," Jessica muttered as her boots clomped off.

"You let that go pretty easily," Matt said.

"Luke already apologized. He's much better at it than her," Steve smiled into his hair. "Are you ready for this?"

"Are you?"

**** *** ** *

Natasha greeted Wanda with double cheek air kisses and didn't get any signals from the woman that anything was wrong. But something was definitely going on inside the bar. It was in a shitty neighborhood and looked like a dump from outside, but inside it was neat and well kept. Quiet. She almost expected it to be filled with hipsters or jocks watching football; but it was diverse and calm. Old jazz played from the speakers and locals were scattered around the booths and the pool tables.

"I'll be at the bar," James said without a nod to Wanda. He still fit better in the shadows than the light even if he tried to carry the shield like a lantern.

"Wait," Wanda said, grabbing his arm, the metal one so she didn't make real contact. She remembered his rules. "This - tonight - it's important and it's going to change everything. Promise me you won't hurt anyone. The people who did this are already dead, they're not the people here tonight."

"Who's here tonight?" James asked, his eyes flicking across the faces in the room.

"The people that saved him," Wanda said. "Sit at the bar, far corner, Matt will explain it to you. Natasha, I'd like you to meet some of my friends."

"Maybe I want to meet your friends first," James said.

Natasha glared at him.

"If you manage to control yourself, you can meet them later," Wanda replied, a flash of red in her eyes warning him off. She had sensed the weight of Wanda's mood without needing a warning but James made his way to the bar as instructed without another word.

"What's going on, Wanda?" she asked.

Red swirled and faltered in her wide eyes. "Steve is dead. Don't get confused. Christopher does not remember. Christopher is not Steve."

Natasha opened her mouth and had to restrain herself from shaking the cryptic riddles out of the woman. Wanda stepped aside and Natasha stopped breathing.  
  
Steve.

"Natasha. This is Christopher," Wanda said

Thinner. Beard. Steve would never let his beard grow that thickly. Steve would never put that much product in his hair. But it was Steve. Alive.

"Christopher. Not Steve," Wanda murmured, taking her elbow and steering her into the booth but placing herself as a buffer between them.

"It's nice to meet you," Steve said, smiling shyly. Oh God.

"How?" Natasha managed. She'd seen Steve die. He died.

"Friend of ours found him bleeding out behind a warehouse a few months back." She made note of the skinny brunette's presence on Steve's other side. Natasha had seen her face on a few briefings in her locked drawer. "He was pretty busted up but he healed faster than a regular street punk. He didn't remember anything. With all the Registration bullshit, we ran his prints and basic details but didn't want to risk the heat of actually running his DNA."

"This is Jessica," Steve said. "She's not always very nice but she's a good friend. And tonight's not about politics."

"I was just saying," Jessica shrugged. "Chris - "

"Christopher, she keeps trying to call me Chris," Steve said.

"Your name is Steve," Natasha said.

"I don't remember being Steve. And from what I read up about him, I really can't imagine being that kind of person," he replied.

"What kind of person?" Wanda asked.

"Brave," he replied. "He seems really smart and brave and I'm - "

"You're brave enough and don't bullshit about being stupid, I, for one, think your innocent altar boy routine is going to wear off any day now," Jessica interrupted him. Natasha couldn't decide if she wanted to stab her dead or buy her a beer.

"Why are you just bringing this to us now? How long - " Natasha needed to focus on the details before her emotions rose any further.

"It took me a while to get myself together," 'Christopher' said. "There weren't any missing persons reports out so one was looking for me so I just...took my time getting well."

Jessica nodded. "Which is exactly what he needed to do so we could hide him. We knew that someone would be looking for a guy like him. He's healthy now and he wanted to step up the search. We found the place they kept him." She dropped a file on the table.

Natasha felt the weight of the woman's eyes on her. Steve, Christopher, kept his eyes averted from the papers as she opened it. "I'm glad I don't remember those things. When I went looking for my past, I never wanted to think about things like that. I wanted to know the truth and now I have to deal with it."

The oxygen seemed to drain out of the room and Natasha shuddered as she processed the first of the photographs in the file.

"I'm glad I don't remember any of that," Christopher said.

 

## matt and bucky

  
"He was wearing a Saint Christopher's medal," Matt said. "I didn't realize until later that's why he chose that name."

Bucky's hand shattered the glass. The hulking bartender wiped it away without a blink and replaced his glass with a plastic shooter cup.

"Kid was terrified," the bartender added. "Gentle as a fucking kitten, but breaking shit left and right."

"Didn't know his own strength," Bucky whispered. No. He would've known. Steve was dead. He'd watched - felt him die. He was cold.

"Or his senses. Matt probably saved his life getting him out of the psych ward, teaching him how to deal with the sound and smells," the bartender said.

He would be looking into this Matt guy when he finished flipping the fuck out.  
  
"What...was wrong with him when you found him?" Bucky managed when they went silent.

"He doesn't remember," Matt said. "Anything. He doesn't remember. Physically, he's fine Better than fine."

"We've got a friend at the hospital that's been faking his files but he's definitely fit," the bartender said.

"Parts of his brain, the parts that deal with memory - they show signs of damage," Matt said.

Bucky held his breath. "Electroshock?"

"And neurosurgery," the bartender said. He laid a folder on the table and he noted the twitch of Matt's fingers that matched the one in his jaw. "This is one of the times I envy that Matt can't see."

He opened the cover. "Not the chair. Please," he choked, covering the image with his hand.

"What does it do?" Matt asked. Bucky focused on the dangerous, angry edge in the man's voice to pull him back to the moment.

"They wipe you. Take your mind and give you theirs," Bucky said. "Over and over until there's nothing left."

"They did it to you?" the bartender asked.

He glared at him until the man put up his hands to feign an apology he didn't mean.

"Christopher's not a weapon," Matt said.

Bucky ignored them and turned the page. "They had to cut the memories out of him. Fuck, Steve...did they put any triggers, any orders? What kind of programming - "

"Jessica found a list of trigger phrases and I tried them on him this afternoon. It gave him a headache," Matt said. The bartender looked surprised.

"You tried them without me or Jess?"

"Christopher is not dangerous," Matt said flatly.

Bucky skimmed the words and tried to ignore the pictures. Fuck. "Not Steve. It's been - how long has he been free?"

"I found him six months ago, he's been staying with me for five," Matt said. "We didn't know about the lab until a few days ago."

"We didn't know about *Steve* until a few days ago. Christopher's a very good friend of ours and we aren't exactly sure of what this Steve guy's going to do to the life he's built," the bartender said darkly.

"You're grinding your teeth, babe, everything okay over here?"

He held his breath. Steve. That was Steve's voice.

"Not sure yet," Matt said, tilting his head. Bucky let the air out through his nose when the men kissed. Steve - no - yes - fuck - with a beard but - fuck -

"Hi. I'm Christopher." He held out his hand.

Bucky stared at the hand a long time before raising his own to shake.

"Oh, wow, that's where that sound's coming from, your arm? Weird," Bearded-Steve smiled brightly, turning his head to listen to the whir of his arm. Steve never smiled like that.

"Yeah. I'm James," he hesitated at Steve - Christopher - *STEVE*'s curious look. "I - I was a friend of Steve's."

"Good friend from what I've read. Uh, are you all right? You can join us, your friend, Natasha, she's a little wigged out, too," Steve - no - Christopher, he would get this - nodded toward the booth full of civilians.

"Have you seen this?" Bucky asked, tapping the file.

He had Steve's face. Steve's eyes. He was thinner and the light in his eyes - it was a light he hadn't seen since long before Sarah Rogers was in the ground. Christopher. Not Steve. Steve...

"It's pretty hard to look at. I can't even watch those surgery shows on TV so the guys took out some of the pictures when they showed it to me. Does it make any sense to you? I mean, why would they do that to someone?"

"They didn't do it to 'someone', they did it to you, Christopher," Matt said, staking his claim with an arm around his waist. Bucky would hate to have to kill a blind man.

"It's awful," Christopher continued, leaning against Matt. "I still can't believe that was me."

Bucky reached up and pulled the chain from his collar. It matched the one hanging from Christopher's neck. "When I shipped out, Steve gave me a card with Saint Christopher on it. He was always a believer and I'd have done anything to make him happy back then. Always, but...it was Steve. I lost it, I never told him, but I lost it before I got on the ship. But when - later, hell, eighty years later - I saw these and bought them. Eighty years is a long way from home, you know?"  
  
"Travelers, yeah," Christopher smiled sadly. "Thank you."

"I gave it to Steve, he already thanked me," Bucky said. He took a deep breath. "Christopher."

Steve - no - looked at him, calculating. "Do you want a hug?"

"He doesn't want a hug," Matt said.

"I gave Natasha a hug and it made her feel better," Christopher said with a quirk of his lips to clue Bucky in that he was only harrassing his boyfriend.

"Were you lovers?" Matt asked suddenly.

Bucky closed the file and slid it under his coat. "Me and Christopher?" he asked dumbly, Matt's face flickering with annoyance.

"That's very impolite, Matt," Christopher - not Steve - frowned.

"Well?" Matt persisted.

Bucky blinked at him.

"Peggy Carter, right? That story's so sad," Christopher said softly.

Dammit, his puppy dog look hadn't changed. "No, Steve didn't swing that way."

"Then who?" Matt asked, more confused than jealous now.

"There are more important things to talk about, Matt. And he tells me my priorities are skewed," Christopher said to Bucky.

Bucky studied Steve. Christopher. Shit. "Steve didn't kiss and tell. The only ones I know about are long dead." He suspected Steve had a mate in this time but he hadn't made it back to full best friend status to find out before...this.

"Come sit down so we can talk together. Jessica and Natasha seem...confrontational," Christopher said, tilting his head. "Luke, you too. It's last call and our friends with real jobs already headed out. I don't have class until ten tomorrow."

"Class?" Bucky asked.

"I'm part time at the junior college, I mean, I'll have a better chance at a real job if I have some kind of skills on my blank record," Christopher said.  
  
"Art? Drafting?" Bucky asked immediately.

Christopher scoffed, good-naturedly but Bucky had already gone cold. "I can barely draw a straight line, plus, left-handed," he waved. "I'm okay at sculpting, though, but only with a blindfold on."

Bucky blinked at him.

"I didn't really know how to help him focus with all five senses going haywire, so we tried a lot of different things," Matt said.

"Steve was an artist. Never went anywhere without a sketchpad," Bucky said quietly. "He wasn't left-handed."

Christopher was silent. "Must've cut that piece out with the rest," he said finally.

"I'm going to kill everyone that had a part in doing this to you," Bucky said.  
  
Christopher winced but Matt smiled and nodded in approval. "You guys sure talk about murder a lot. I'm not really into that."

"Kitten. We told you," Luke said.

**** *** ** *

"So, you gonna turn us in?" Jessica asked when James and Luke pulled up chairs outside of the booth. "Put us on a watchlist so our neighbors can put up angry signs telling us they don't want us on their block?"

"Josie dropped out," Christopher said. He'd been here the whole time and he still wasn't sure how the meeting was going.

Natasha snapped her attention to him like she did every time he spoke. "Who's Josie?"

"She was in my philosophy class, she got tagged by the index and everyone froze her out. We studied together a few times, I wanted her to know that she still had friends, but she couldn't take it after the news came out. She had to move out of her dorm," Christopher said.

"We're...working on it," James said quietly.  
  
"Sometimes you have to get inside if you want to break something down. We don't have enough solid proof that the higher-ups are dirty," Natasha said in a low voice. "We can't protect everyone."

"We tried fighting it from the other side and...the world saw how that turned out," James said. "I...Steve..."  
  
"There are battles that normal people aren't prepared to fight. Our issues with the government shouldn't leave the world unprotected. Steve wouldn't want that," Wanda picked up. "He would understand because they are protecting us the only way they are allowed."

Oh.

"This...this will help if, well. If," Natasha said, tapping her fingers on the file.

"Why would we turn you in? Haven't seen powers from any of you," James said, looking at each of his friends with renewed suspicion.

"This area is on my watch. None of the sightings here have shown any signs of being dangerous. The Devil of Hell's Kitchen is intriguing but hasn't caused enough damage to make the news," Wanda said simply. She met Christopher's gaze and nodded an apology. "Your friend, Josephine's powers were minimal, not significant enough to warrant military interest."

"So you got her listed to take the heat off people you already know?" Christopher asked. That wasn't right.

"The things they did to Steve - sorry, to *you* - are not unique. We can't find enough proof to expose it," Natasha said sharply. "This isn't - we're trying to keep as many people safe as we can. She's on the index, it shows that the system is still checking all areas, all ages, but they won't hurt her and they won't *take* her because her powers are safe..."

"Even when we get actual bad guys, some of them disappear. It's - we do what we can with what we have," James said, giving Natasha a glare that didn't manage to hide his concern.

"Okay. Thank you for explaining it. I'm sure there are a ton of politics involved and that's way out of my scale of knowledge," Christopher said. He still wasn't comfortable with Josie as a sacrifice play, but he was trying to understand.

Natasha opened her mouth and closed it quickly. James' eyes were locked on her. "We can't leave you here if you can't protect yourself," she said finally.

"We can protect him until then," Jessica said.

"I can protect myself," Christopher frowned. "Just because you beat me last week doesn't mean - "

"I beat you because you won't man up and hit me in the face when you should," Jessica fired back.

"Steve never liked hitting girls," James said quietly. Christopher hoped he wasn't searching for similarities. He could never be Captain Rogers, no matter how much he practiced sparring.

"We spar with him," Luke said. "He holds his own. He's taken Jess down enough to show that he can win a fight."

"And you? Can he take you down?" Wanda asked curiously.

Luke glanced at Jessica and then at Christopher before taking out his pocket knife and jamming it into, or against anyway, his flattened hand. The blade bent and finally broke.

"Unbreakable skin," Natasha said. Luke visibly tensed. "People are looking for you. They think you're a white guy working out of Illinois."

Jessica snickered and Christopher hid his smile.

"I'm extra strong, but not as strong as he is when he's really putting his back into it," Jessica said when she realized everyone was looking at her.

"He doesn't stay with you, though," James said to Luke and Jessica, turning his attention to Matt. Oh no.

"How many weapons do you count on him, Christopher?" Matt asked conversationally.

"Four guns, two in the front and the back on his belt, six extra clips in his coat pockets, three more guns in his jacket and two more on his ankles."

"Knives?" Matt asked.

"Ten knives, twelve throwing stars," Christopher recited.  
  
"Twelve knives. You missed the ceramic ones on his wrists," Matt said.

"You haven't taught me what they sound like yet," Christopher said. "They make knives out of glass?"

"They make knives out of everything," Natasha said.

"So you have good hearing, that's not going to protect him," James said.

Matt shrugged.

"Matt's the only person that can beat Luke. He's undefeated in the sparring count but I took him out once," Jessica said.

"He was recovering from a gunshot, that doesn't count," Christopher pointed out.

Natasha scanned him but Matt was glaring at them all with his mind.

"You have a false tooth, third from the back on the left side. You run your tongue over it when you're thinking but it doesn't show on your face," Matt said to her.

Jessica mouthed something to James and Christopher didn't know what it was until James pulled out a knife and flicked it easily in Matt's direction.

Matt snatched it out of the air without turning his head.

"You're totally uninvited to dinner tomorrow," Christopher told her.

Matt took the knife and held it out. "He killed a man from India with that," he said.

"Who the fuck are you?" James asked.

"Oh. Oh. No one would ever expect you, would they? I definitely think Christopher is in good hands," Wanda smiled suddenly.

"I don't have any superpowers, just very specialized hearing," Matt said.

"At least you've been sparring with him," Natasha said, letting the subject drop for now.

"Self defense, he doesn't let us teach him the stuff he needs to know most," Jessica said.

Christopher really didn't want to have this argument here.

"We'll definitely be discussing his training soon," James said.

Christopher made a face. "I have class tomorrow and a shift volunteering at the church - "

"Things are going to change now, Christopher," Matt said quietly.

He rolled his eyes. "I know that, but we all agreed on taking this slow. No one's looking for me since, apparently I'm dead, and I'm definitely not comfortable with playing a captain of anything any time soon." He looked over at James who everyone said knew Steve best. "How old should I be?"

James hesitated. "That's relative. You were twenty-five when you went down, and you woke up in this time about ten years ago, so if you're counting conscious time, you're thirty-five."

"My mind doesn't always work like a thirty-five year old," Christopher said. It was time to lay his cards out. "Some mornings I can't work the buttons on my shirt or I won't remember how to drive my motorcycle, or count out change."

Jessica and Luke didn't hide their surprise and Matt frowned. "No, they need to know." He turned back to James. "Sometimes I don't...*think* the way I'm supposed to."

"Sometimes he can't understand English. He'll speak French or Thai, but he won't know English," Matt sighed. "He's not stupid, he's not..."

"I have minor brain damage, I don't know how much because we didn't think it was safe to see a neurologist when I'm...gifted or whatever," Christopher said.

"You asshole, you should've told us," Jessica hissed.

"There's nothing wrong with him," Matt snapped. "He always comes out of it, it never lasts long enough to worry about."

"You don't remember anything, though. You don't have any lapses that involve memories," Natasha stated, not blinking.

He raised his hand to his throat, to his chin. "I remember being afraid. I don't like anyone to touch my throat, or my face. Matt's...different, we're working on it," he added firmly. "I don't remember my name, or anything other than being absolutely terrified."

"When I found him, he kept repeating these numbers over and over, begging me to take him there like it was an address. 32557038. It's not enough for a phone number or - " Matt started.

James stood up like a wire snapped and knocked over his chair. He stormed out of the bar into the street. Christopher wondered how bad of an idea this really was.

Natasha carefully pulled a set of dog tags from her collar. "That's James' number, not Steve's."

"Oh, we didn't check dog tags," Jessica said. "He didn't seem military."

The door opened and James returned with intent dark on his face. "Christopher." He met the man's eyes. "I know you don't remember me and you might not believe me yet - but we're family, even if you don't remember - I do, this time, I'm the one that remembers and I'm the one that's going to get you back. 100%, Christopher or Steve, Bucky or James - we're both going to be 100% again, okay?"

"Say okay before he pops a vein," Jessica broke the silence.

"Okay," Christopher said.

"Okay. Good. Okay," James repeated, deflating.

"We'll reach out to some doctors. Steve didn't trust many scientists or physicians but there were exceptions still within our network," Natasha said.

"And Sam," James said. "He deserves to be here. He - he'll want to help."

Christopher didn't know who Sam was but he knew that Matt and his friends would vet any strangers before he got to meet them.

"Guess it's a good thing we haven't burned out the lab yet. Get your shit together and come with us if you want to do the final sweep. I might let your boyfriend light the match," Jessica told Natasha.

**** *** ** *

"Why did you wait so long to investigate the lab?" Natasha asked Jessica outside the bar.

"Matt found Christopher and strangely, he's not the best with directions," Jessica muttered. It was a lie and Natasha seemed to see through it. She tilted her head as Christopher's voice came through the opening door.

"I don't want to go back there, it was awful, you don't need me there," he was saying.

"We don't usually deal with big bads like you're used to," Jessica said under her breath. "Crazed psychopaths with too much time on their hands, yeah, we'll check it out; but that lab...that's above our pay grade. We knew there was something about Christopher but resurrected Captain America did *not* make the list."

Natasha nodded tightly.

"Some of us have real jobs and shit to do." Jessica glanced at Christopher fretting over Matt's scarf. "Keeping the kid happy and breathing seemed like enough for a while. He deserved to make his own choices so we let him make the calls."

James walked over to Natasha. "We can't leave him here."

Natasha glanced at Jessica. "I think he's safe for now."

Wanda appeared with her arm linked with Christopher and Matt at her other side. "I am escorting Christopher home. He has kindly invited us for breakfast tomorrow."

"Matt will tell me anything I need to know when he comes home," Christopher said. James' metal arm whirred with restraint as his fist clenched but Christopher smiled at him. "I'll see you soon, James. You seem like a sturdy guy, you're already on my list of friends to call when I save enough to buy a couch."

"Tomorrow then," Natasha said, taking James' wrist. Jessica bet they had fun in bed.

"Fuck all of you," James said, pulling his arm away from her before stepping toward Christopher and pulling him into a hug that made Christopher huff in surprise. "Family. Don't forget."

"I knew you wanted a hug," Christopher smiled, patting his back.

Jessica rolled her eyes. "All right, Princess, it's past your bedtime and I need you rested for that stroganoff I earned being helpful tonight."

Christopher flipped her off and Wanda winked at her. Jessica wasn't entirely comfortable with that. "You're lucky your boyfriend's nice."

"I need to see your place, make sure it's safe and check the perimeters - " James said, turning to Matt as soon as the taxi pulled away.

"No," Matt interrupted flatly. "You're the current Captain America, even a blind guy will recognize you walking around Hell's Kitchen. You and the Widow are like a flashing beacon for everything Christopher needs to hide from."

"We're not taking you to this lab for you to call in your black choppers," Jessica said. "At least not until we're long gone and there's no trail for the kid."

"I'll check the streets and let you know if anything's out of place," Matt said, slipping into the shadows and earning an impressed eyebrow from Natasha.

"I don't even want to know why the blind guy's playing spotter for us," James threw his hands up.

 

 

## breakfast

"Come in, ignore the boxes," Christopher smiled as he opened the door for his new, or old, depending on the conversation, friends.

Natasha glanced around, laser-focused on the layout. "Why the boxes?"

"I can't stay here forever, Matt deserves his space," Christopher said.

"But you're together," James said, shadowing her into the apartment.

"We're dating, living together is a step we need to work up to," Christopher replied. "I need to be able to stand on my own."

Matt joined them with a resigned expression. "He doesn't like feeling like a boy-toy, but I keep telling him I don't make that kind of money."

 

 

 

**So, then what had happened - Bucky and Natasha, and Sam & Clint, etc. slowly spend time with Christopher and try to come to terms with him as 'not-Steve'. They start to investigate Steve's 'death', etc.  People find out stuff.

 

  
## sparring

"His hand-to-eye coordination is shit," James said. Matt knew he was there but he'd forgotten in his steady pounding of the bag with his sore knuckles.

"I wouldn't know," Matt replied. Christopher hadn't talked much about James and Natasha's 'private training regiment'. He hit the bag again, double time.

"You taught him to fight. Christopher," James stated.

Matt caught the bag and turned toward his voice. "What are you asking, James?"

"I'm asking if he'll be better at this with a blindfold," James replied. "I want to see you spar with him."

He heard Foggy approach. "Uh, hey, James, right? Yeah, Matt's just a blind guy who likes to stay in shape, he doesn't spar. Ever."

"I already know he's some kind of ninja or something, I just want to see how he fights so I can fix how Christopher fights," James snapped.

"I could spar with you, but I can already tell you that your arm's going to be why you lose."

"That's what Christopher said," James muttered. "He can't depend on his hearing in a big battle, he'll need all his cylinders firing."

"Jessica covered his ears once but she kept kicking the earmuffs off when they fought," Foggy said helpfully.

"We can give it a go," Matt decided. "As long as you remember that I'm not superhuman and I have to work a real job and would like to be able to walk."

"And not have a black eye for court tomorrow," Foggy added.

He waited until James shrugged out of his jacket to lead him to the back door. "We can't break any equipment, I'm already on probation."

 

 

 

## loyalty check

  
"Stark. What did you do with Cap's shield?"

"Barnes has it, don't you watch the news or are you too busy playing shuffleboard and watching Matlock in your retirement?" He wouldn't mention the farm or the family. He hoped Clint knew that.

"That's not the original. What did you do with the real shield?"

He froze. How - it had been over a year and no one had noticed a difference. "It - I didn't want - it doesn't seem right for anyone else to carry it. Not - look, if something's wrong with Barnes' gear - "

"Did you give the vibranium back to T'Challa?"  
  
"No - it's Cap's shield," Tony stated. Why didn't he get that?

"Did you test it?"

"Steve never let me run tests on his shield."

"You should test it. A lot of people think you're in on it."

"In on what?" Tony asked.

"We'll see."

**** *** ** *

 

## seizure

"Hey, Christopher. You okay?" Sam noticed something off about him immediately. He had one hand against the wall and he was shuffling instead of taking actual steps.

"Can you...Claire? Tell her...I'm having one of those things again," he said after a long pause.

"What things?" Sam asked as James flew past him to Christopher's side.

"She - happens - don't - she knows," Christopher replied, trying and failing to shake off James' assistance in making his way to the couch.

His eyes were slightly wild, not tracking movement and darting around the space. Sam went cold when he realized what was happening. "He's having a seizure," he said. James' eyes went wide with panic.

"You can - don't touch my neck, just, not my wrists or, you can hold me down, just," Christopher stuttered, his head snapping to the side sharply.

Sam scanned the numbers on the fridge and dialed while James straddled Christopher on the couch and placed his hand carefully against his head so he could still his misfired movements against a cushion without trapping him between both hands.

 

## better

"It's better, I'm better," Christopher said. He was looking at Sam and Claire with honest, genuine eyes but they could still see his left hand twitching and twisting where Bucky had it cupped in his metal hand on his knee.

"This one was the worst he's had in a while. You've called me every time, haven't you?" Claire asked Christopher pointedly.

"Yeah," Christopher said. "I want to be healthy."

"He said he had a headache last night," Sam said. Bucky should have checked on him before he passed out on the couch. He should have checked.

"Have you been eating three meals a day? No skipping, lots of carbs?" Claire asked. "No caffeine?"

"Wait. Steve - he has - had - to eat at least triple what a normal person eats, he has accelerated metabolism," Sam said.

Claire considered his words but Bucky only watched as Christopher's fingers finally ran out of power and stilled in his palm.

"I rode the subway and it was really loud. I probably had my headphones turned up too much," Christopher said quietly. "I've been...tired."

"You haven't said anything," Bucky said, trying not to get mad.

"I'm getting better, stronger. I figured it was just a trade off," Christopher said. "Stamina's something I have to learn, too. It's a body thing, not a brain thing."

Sam sighed and Bucky wanted to echo but he caught Christopher's attention. "You have to take care of yourself. We all have different skill sets. If you need to be a sprinter and not cross-country then it's something you have to make note of."

Christopher deflated. "Matt doesn't know about these. Just Claire, and now you guys."

"We'll start with protein shakes, it's how we did it with James when we got him back. Spicy and rich food didn't sit well with him but he would drink shakes and worked his way out," Sam said. "We'll start checking his blood sugar and labs more regularly once the doc gets set up. I've got Steve's biometrics and stats for a baseline."

Claire perked up. "I have records we can start with."

"Steamed rice and white sauce was my favorite," Bucky said, catching Christopher's waning attention. "I ate it for weeks, no matter what country we were in. It was the only thing I could stomach other than vanilla protein shakes. It took me years to get steady in my skin again."

Christopher hummed but he leaned his head against Bucky's shoulder. "Thank you for staying today. I'm sorry I can't train, but I like hanging out with you. Especially when it doesn't involve training."

"Just rest so I can blame my morning off on you," Bucky said. He waited until his heartbeat settled into sleep to nod his head to catch Sam's attention and bring him and the nurse back into the room. "Any signs we should be looking for to keep this from happening again?"

"I really am just a nurse. We don't have any recent MRI scans or EEG's because...we had to get him out of the hospital before someone figured out he was different. I can manage basic labs and meds, but anything else is out of my range," Claire said.

Sam patted a stack of papers. "This helps, more than you know."

"I'll call you on my first break and you have my pager," Claire said.

Bucky nodded his goodbye and carefully lowered Christopher to stretch out on the couch, raising and covering his legs before joining Sam in the other room.

"James. What the hell - how did we - "

"Me. You mean me. I should have found him. I should have stayed with him until they put him in the ground - this - this is my fault. The least I can do is help Christopher have a life. He trusts me, you think he trusts me, right? He knows that I'm here to help and not - "

Sam stopped him with a sharp squeeze of the shoulder. "He trusts you and he's trying but he doesn't have the experiences to draw from that regular people do. Even his oldest memories would be from a time that doesn't fit now and the fact that he's adjusted to a new world - again without even those experiences to draw from, it's unbelievable. Christopher's..."

"He's who Steve would have been if he hadn't gone to war," Bucky whispered. They were all thinking it. "I won't ask him to fight this war with me. I want him safe."

"That's not up to us. Today sucks but we know more about his condition than yesterday and we're going to figure this out. You put your puzzle together, he will, too," Sam said.

"Yeah, but at least I had the pieces to my puzzle," Bucky muttered.

 

  
## pool of knowledge

"Why is he here?" Clint asked, glaring at Tony.

"I was about to ask the same thing about you," Tony replied.

Sam Wilson stepped into the room and Tony's interest went on even higher alert. "Wilson. Is this about the shield? Did you find it?"

"This meeting's about Christopher," Natasha said, standing up. James sat at her left without looking at anyone.

"Should we know who that is?" Clint asked before Tony could chime in with the same question.

"If you did, I'd have killed you already," James said, finally looking up. "There are no sides today, we're here for Christopher. From here on, all blame and guilt stops. This is all our faults, we're all to fucking blame, but this is about him."

His tone didn't leave room for argument so Tony had to say something. "How can we feel guilty for something we don't know about?"

"Hold your questions until the end," Sam said. Natasha sat down and took James' hand. This was serious.

He searched his brain for any Chrises he'd ever met as the screen lit up with what looked like x-rays.

"Christopher's a college student. Six months ago, he was found in an alley in a low-rent part of town," Sam started. "He had enough tranquilizers and anesthetics in his system to kill fifty men but he was physically intact. He had bruises and cosmetic injuries on admission, but they cleared up within hours."

"So the kid's got healing powers, that's not enough to get on your level radar for pickup," Tony said.

Clint glared at him.

"Shut up," Sam said with a flash of anger. Tony held up his hands for truce. Momentarily.

"Go on or we'll never get through this," James murmured, covering his face. This had to be bad if he was actually upset.

"The hospital didn't make note of his 'abilities' because they were more concerned with his mental state. Christopher has no memory before he was found in the alley. His senses are elevated and to avoid making the radar for pickup, he was taken in by some concerned citizens," Sam said. "A few weeks ago, he convinced his friends to step up the search for his past."

"There's no chance he'll get his memories back," Natasha said softly.

Sam cleared his throat. "They found a lab. They found a lab covered with insignia all of us will recognize. They found brain scans and medical data and experimental drugs." He motioned to the screen with three side-by-side images.

"This is Christopher's brain MRI from two years ago. This is seven months ago. This is seven days ago," Sam pointed out.

Tony didn't want to see it. He ran back through his neurology lessons to narrow down what was supposed to be in the gaping hole in the middle image. "That's the memory center of the brain."

"He'll never remember," Natasha said.

Tony turned his attention back to Sam. "Why? What did they want him to forget?"

The picture changed to a blood splattered lab and a familiar chair.

"Fucking hell, they were brainwashing him?" Clint blurted out.

Sam pursed his lips and nodded. "And more. Harvesting. They took blood, spinal samples, skin samples...they pulled his fingernails out, the worst things you can imagine, they did. Since Christopher doesn't have any memories and we don't have the video of his escape, we don't know how he got away in the end. There were bodies, but Christopher doesn't remember killing them."

Sam reached into his pocket and dropped a familiar metal insignia on the table. Clint's gasp echoed in the room but Tony snatched it.

"Where did you get this? This was buried with Cap - it's - where did you get this?" Tony demanded.

Sam turned away and clicked the button for the screen to change into a split screen again with three images of a man. "Two years ago. Seven months. Seven days."

Steve, smiling brightly with Clint's youngest on his hip. Steve restrained flat with his scalp hanging by a flap. Steve with a beard, thinner with a backpack on his shoulder.

"Christopher. Seven months ago, he was probably still Steve Rogers, but today, he's Christopher," Sam said, pointing at the third one.

No. "No - who - no, he was dead, I stayed with him, did they - he was safe, this - who did we bury if that's Steve?" No - Tony couldn't accept this.

"Rumlow," James hissed. "HYDRA thought it was funny to have Steve's mourners pray on his killer's grave."

"No..." Tony whispered.

"Natasha, is this - " Clint said.

She nodded and Tony fucking knew it was true. "Christopher. Not Chris, not Steve, but Christopher, all the syllables. He's...good. He's a good man. Sweet, funny, innocent as fuck. Steve was fearless. Christopher is not."

James raised his head but didn't meet anyone's eyes. "I knew Steve Rogers better than anyone else, better than I knew myself. Christopher isn't Steve. Once, yeah, he was, but he's not now."

"He'll never remember, they cut it out of his brain, they cut *us* out of his brain," Natasha snapped.

"Stop, please," James whispered, lowering his head again.

"Christopher's showing a lot of progress from when I first met him," Sam picked up. "His friends didn't know about his metabolism or details of his physiology. They didn't know he used to be Captain America until they found the shield in the lab. He's not in top shape. He has migraines, seizures, panic attacks, and muscle spasms - for a start. He's a superhero, but they really fucked him up."

"He has to be healthy enough to be safe and okay on his own before we move on anything," James said.

Clint settled his gaze on Tony and he felt Sam's on him, too.

"Can we expose it? Is Christopher ready for that? You need to have enough to take down the whole hierarchy, to have irrefutable proof that this has to do with the Index," Tony replied.

"We have it. We have the fingerprint codes for the lab. We have the falsified reports for the dead bodies in the room. They were all reported as killed in action on missions that took place long after they were dead. Seven people with powers were arrested and charged for their murders, even if their bodies were locked in a secret building. They were all vetted and approved as Indexers with your signature on their hiring papers," Natasha said flatly.

Tony was going to throw up. "What? I - "

"We don't think you're in on this," Sam spoke before anyone else could chime in. "You're a busy asshole that doesn't know who's feeding you paperwork. HYDRA had rats on both sides of the fence, they were just lucky the ones with the best resources won the vote."

"They tried interrogation, then the wipe, the harvesting happened the whole way; they probably have samples of his blood in biology classrooms considering how much they drained. They took part of his liver and gave it to a senator in California that needed a transplant and had plans for his kidneys and eyes," Natasha hissed.

"He didn't tell those fuckers anything, right up until the end - he didn't tell them anything," James said in a rush. "He could have given up everything, killed what's left of the Anti-Registration movement, hell, he had an entire Index in his head and he didn't talk. They couldn't wipe it, he's not like me, they couldn't burn it out with electricity so they used a scapel instead. They didn't get the information but they took it out of him anyway."

"How do we know Christopher's not a personality they put into him with the chair?" Clint asked, deathly pale.

"He took the name from his necklace. Saint Christopher. Bastard still knew his saints, goes to Mass like clockwork, keeps a rosary in his pocket beside his phone," James said.

"Where is he?" Tony whispered.

"Safe. He wants to help, but...he's not a soldier. He's never been in a fistfight that wasn't choreographed on a training mat. He doesn't have the skills to lead or even be on a team if it comes down to it," Natasha said.

"He's improving and he still has the muscle memory to hold his own, but it's going to be at least a few more months before his brain repairs itself enough to consider him fully healed," Sam sighed.

"I want to see everything you have," Tony said, taking what felt like the first breath in days. "I can't take anything with me when I walk out, but I want to see everything. I want the name of every person that had eyes on this - "

"Tony," Clint stated, drawing his attention.

"This isn't what I intended, this isn't why - "

Sam cleared his throat. "This meeting's about Christopher, nothing else. Plans, bullshit vengeance missions, do that on your own time."

"You were Steve's friends once. Christopher wants Steve's friends, his real ones, to know the truth before we start a war in his name," Natasha said.

James smiled suddenly and it was out of place on his face. "Hawkeye was his favorite, before he found out he was Cap. He said that Hawkeye was the one that didn't need fancy toys or superpowers but he still fought just as hard as everyone else. He'll probably want your autograph."

"He has a Hawkeye bobblehead in his bathroom," Natasha added.

"Can I tell Laura?" Clint asked. He looked old now that his color was returning. Tired. "She'll want to know why I'm gearing up again."

"And the witch, someone should tell her," Tony said. Wanda adored Cap.

"Wanda knows. She disagrees with Christopher's decision to help. She wants him as far away from all of this that she can get him. She would prefer he have no memory at all than have any memory of this," Sam said, nodding to the screen.

"I - I'd like to meet him," Clint said.

Natasha and James nodded and Sam sighed. "He's okay to meet Clint. Tony, though, I can't promise the same."

He figured it wouldn't be as simple for him since he's the reason Steve's dead.

"His boyfriend would kill you, it'll take some arranging to get him to meet you without threat of serious bodily injury," Natasha said. "Christopher's fine with it, he wants to make friends so he can get a better phone."

"He doesn't need a new phone, he's already kicking my ass at Fantasy Football with his shitty phone," James muttered.  
  
"Give me that," Natasha said, snatching his phone from his lap and scanning the screen.

Sam sighed again but his hand twitched for his own phone.

"Hold on, you're playing Fantasy Football when all this shit is hitting the fan?" Clint asked.

"Boyfriend?" Tony asked over him.

"It's to help with his logical thinking," Sam said, succumbing and pulling out his phone. "Goddamn it. He has to be cheating."

For a split second, it felt like five years ago when he had friends that didn't hate his guts. When he still had a reason to smile.

He turned to Clint. "I'll give you some things to take him. Aida in Expenses is still on the Assassin Duo's list and can get you anything else you want."

Natasha and James stared at him. "What?"

"Oh fuck off, I know you guys don't believe in Registration. You've been biding your time and laying your traps since the beginning. I wish you'd taken me down before...this."

"*This* probably would've happened with or without you. We know you loved Cap, too, in your own twisted way," Sam said.

 

 

 

**So then this other stuff that I didn't intend to happen and what that was -

 

  
## sign language

"Christopher. What are you doing?" Clint asked, his eyes locked on something to the right of him.

"Hm?" He blinked the headache from behind his eyes. "Trying to nap. Head hurts."

"Your right hand, what are you doing?" Clint asked, still not looking at him, but watching the couch.

Sam stepped into the room. "What's up?"

Christopher looked down and saw the fingers on his right hand twitching and curling without him knowing it.

"Seizure," Sam said immediately.

"No - that's - it's sign language, he's finger-spelling," Clint said.

"What's it say? I'm not doing it, what does it say?" Christopher asked, trying not to panic. Damn his head hurt.

Clint glanced at Sam with wide eyes.

"What does it say, Clint?" Christopher asked. He was tired of everyone talking about his health behind his back.

"It says 'Fuck Hydra, I'll never tell you anything'," Clint stated.

Christopher went cold. "It - does that mean he's trapped in here? Steve, is he - I'm not doing this, I don't know sign language," he said, clutching his hand against his chest.

"No - it's an involuntary reaction, it's not that," Sam said but there was something in his voice, a tell. Oh god.

"He just keeps repeating it," Clint said. Christopher shivered as Clint moved to his side and took the twitching hand in his palm.

"Can you tell him it's safe? Can you talk to him? Do you think he sees what I see?" Christopher asked.

Clint made a slow series of signs, but Christopher's fingers were still twitching in panic.

Sam crouched on the carpet at their feet, and traced letters over his forearm. "U R SAFE." Christopher didn't feel it but his right hand stilled. His fingers moved, slower now.

"Numbers. 32557038," Clint said.

"Bucky's dog tags," Christopher remembered. "He told us."

Sam spelled 'BUCKY IS OK. SAFE.' on his forearm.

His fingers went lax. A shard of white pain lashed out between his ears but he had to hold on and ride out the headache. Steve. Steve was still inside. He closed his eyes.

"They cut me into pieces. Please. Kill me," Clint whispered, too low for even Sam to hear but loud enough to echo in Christopher's head.

"What?" Sam asked. "I can't reply to him if I don't know what he's saying."

"I'm gonna be sick," Christopher realized, jerking as his body decided he'd ignored the headache enough and sent its protests to his stomach instead.

 

 

**Seriously. I wanted this to be an exploration of Christopher existing as a blank slate - like, what if Captain America didn't wake up out of his time - what if he was a normal twenty-thirtysomething blank slate with superpowers - how would that impact his relationship with Bucky and Tony and Natasha and everyone - but that isn't what happened.  What happened was...

 

## informed consent

"Even if Cap is inside Christopher, there's no way to tell how much of his psyche remains - and there's no way to know if Christopher won't be just as trapped if we bring Cap out," Sam said.

"It could just be leftover, misfiring neural synapses," Bruce said. "There's no way to tell."

"Unless you try something," Christopher said, breaking his silence.

"We're not risking your life on a wild guess," Matt said before anyone else dared to speak up.

"We talked about this," Christopher said, tapping his hand. "Never leave a man behind, all of you guys have risked your lives to save your friends before and Steve...he needs help. He's screaming for it the only way he knows how and I can't - I don't want - he needs help and I want to help him. If I'm meant to be here, if this body belongs to me, then I'll wake up. But this - Steve deserves a chance to wake up, too."

"There's nothing to try," James said flatly.

"Put the right half of my brain to sleep," Christopher replied. "It's opposite, right? I'm left-handed because the right side runs the show, so he must be stuck in the left half. Turn me off and see if he can turn on without me in the way."

"You were eavesdropping," Bruce frowned at him.

"I have good hearing," Christopher replied. "You can't make decisions for me, and if you're making decisions for Steve then you should be trying to get him back." He turned to Matt. "You promised you'd support me, that you'd forgive me."

"I'll hate you," Matt said flatly.

Christopher frowned.

"I'll forgive you, always, but I'll hate you for it. Always," Matt said.

"Christopher, this isn't - we have no proof that it can even be done," Bruce said.

"He's digging his heels in on this, so you probably need to start finding a way," Matt muttered. "Stubborn asshole."

"I want to help," Christopher insisted. "I'm shit at everything else I've tried, but this - maybe this is something I can do to help. Maybe this is how I get to save my friends."

"Yeah, 'cause being a martyr turned out so well for Cap," Bruce said.

"Shouldn't you ask him that?" Christopher fired back. "It's not your choice to make."

  
**So, I wanted Jessica here because she has superstrength and she's totes fierce about Christopher in her own snarky way. I heart Jessica.

  
## procedure

"Don't. Don't let him forget me. Memories are important. Make sure he remembers that I loved him," Christopher said, his left hand clenching Jessica's fingers tightly. "I loved all of you, don't forget, don't..."

"Jesus," she whispered when his hand went limp. She glanced up and met James' dark eyes. "This better work, you prick."

"The right side's showing signs of stasis, is he reactive?" Bruce asked over the speaker.

James immediately began tracing words with his metal fingertips on Christopher's arm. She saw a line on one of the many monitors jump.

"What are you telling him?" Jessica asked.

"To reach, to see if he can feel more than just my words," James said.

She didn't think it would work but at least he had some kind of plan. She glanced around the room and spotted an icepack. She snapped it to activate it and pulled down the collar of Christopher's t-shirt and dropped it on his chest.

James glared at her but the monitor jumped again as his fingers started to move to spell words. "Cold. Shit, follow the cold," he said, writing the words as he spoke.

She moved it over to his left shoulder and almost sobbed when his left hand moved.

"He wants you to do his face, he wants his eyes."

The icepack was freezing and she raised her chilled fingertips and traced them over his closed eyelids, circling his eyes and smoothing a line to his ears and over his parted lips.

Christopher gasped sharply, arching his back and yanking his hand away from James and putting it against his throat.

"It's okay, Christopher - relax - " she said but the panicked blue eyes weren't his when he looked at her.

"Steve. Steve," James said, sharper the second time.

"Bucky?"

Her heart dropped when Christopher threw his arms around James. The one-armed bastard started to cry.

She glanced at the monitors and all the lines were alive with motion. Even the ones on the right side where Christopher should be sleeping.

"Hey, hey, we don't know how long this is going to last - we have to slow down - " James said, pulling away and swiping at his eyes. "What's the last thing you remember?"

Christopher, shit, no - Steve - raised his hand to his throat. "They shot me in the neck, I fell, then - a lab, they - they tried - "

"After the lab, what do you remember after you got out?" James asked urgently.

"I - I didn't know I was out - I remember - the devil. I saw the devil, Bucky," Steve said, grabbing him with both hands. "I was in hell, trapped - the devil - "

"Daredevil," Jessica said before they started dragging religion into this mess.

"What?" James asked her.

"Daredevil. Matt," Steve said. "Shit. What's - where am I? What - how much time, how long did they - "

"Do you remember Matt?" James asked, glancing at her. Where was that goddamn doctor to tell them what to do?

"I - I remember the lab, I remember - Matt means safe, what - this isn't right, what - I need to know what's going on, why - what happened?"

She spotted the blood before James and grabbed for a cloth. "You're bleeding."

Red trickled from both ears and his pupils were different sizes. "Steve? What's wrong?"

"My head is killing me," Steve said.

The doctor finally spoke through the speakers. "Lay him down, his brain's - it's complicated, just keep him still as much as possible and - "

"Hey, hey, relax," James soothed, urging him to lie down.

"I can't - this isn't right, I'm - why aren't I dead? Is this real?" Steve panted.

Jessica sighed. "I thought you were supposed to be some kind of genius. Stop freaking out and slow down," she said, wiping at his cheeks. Steve didn't protest when she wiped at his neck.

"You. You're...Jessica. Christopher. Who's Christopher?" Steve asked, but his pupils evened out and were at least the same size in each eye again when he tracked her.

"Stop trying to remember shit and focus on breathing and not blacking out, yeah?" she said.

"Is - is everyone safe? What happened after I died this time?" Steve asked.

"Not until you stop bleeding, not until we know for sure," James replied.

"I - I'm okay, I'm not scared - I'm okay," Steve said, even if his eyes were dark with confusion. "I - wow, there's something - there's something wrong with my head - I didn't mean to say that, I mean, it's true, but - "

"Christopher doesn't know sign language," Jessica realized.

"Who's Christopher?" Steve demanded. His mouth snapped closed and his eyes rolled back as he seized under their hands. "Oh fuck, he's - I'm - make it stop - Bucky - "

It took Jessica and James both holding him down to keep him from shaking off the gurney but when he stopped flailing and stopped screaming - everything was quiet.

And it was all for nothing.

"Your doctor's a prick," Jessica said finally.

**** *** ** *

"Bucky."

James sat up with a jolt at the sound and Matt forced himself to be still at the edge of the bed. Guess that answered the question of who was going to wake up.

"Right here. Hey, how do you feel?" James asked.

"That's a loaded question. Matt, right? Christopher's man. Huh."

"Steve, do you - " James started.

Matt held his breath. "He's in here," Steve said in Christopher's voice. "My head. Everything's jumbled but, I can hear him. I heard him. He loved you."

"Yeah," Matt managed. "Is he gone?"

"Not completely. I can hear him. Could he hear me?"

Matt shook his head. "No, never."

"We didn't know you were still...alive inside until Clint saw him signing. Christopher doesn't know sign language," James said.

"He's been telling me things. Showing me things. I don't - there's a lot I don't understand, everything's faded. My - I'm faded, but Christopher's technicolor," Steve said. Matt felt tapping at his sleeve and he turned his hand to accept the familiar fingers between his own, even if Christopher wasn't controlling them.

"I'm blind and I could've told you that," Matt smiled. "It's tolerable to meet you, Captain."

"You, too, Daredevil," Steve said, a smile in his voice.

"Yeah, a little warning on that would've been nice, Murdock," James muttered.

"I'm just a blind lawyer from Hell's Kitchen," Matt replied. He couldn't see James giving him the middle finger but he knew the sound of the metal arm's motions by now. "What's he showing you?"

"He sees like you do," Steve said quietly. "I know how you taste. I know how your hands feel on my skin, how you smell when you've been drinking with Jessica and how you sound when you're still on the edge of sleep. He wants me to tell you that he's not scared and that he still likes you best no matter what I say."

"So he's...gone," Matt breathed.

"Figure it's about 75-25," Steve said.

"What?" Matt and James asked together.

"Christopher's...a part of me now. He'll always be here, just, I'm here now, too," Steve said. "He's not scared, he's okay. I'm supposed to check football scores."

James snorted. "Of course you are."

"I've got a lot to catch up on. Christopher's got a place, right? Somewhere I - we - can finish patching my head together without being in a hospital? Is this a hospital?" Steve asked, his voice shaky. Matt squeezed his fingers and slowly felt his pulse level out.

"No, it's safe here, we're just riding this out. We didn't expect you to revert...like this, we thought Christopher would still be in control so we're flying blind. Steve, they - they cut you. They cut out - you shouldn't have any memories," James said.

"I moved it. I tried - I remember being in that lab...I couldn't move and they were pumping drugs into my veins, turning me to mush...I remember that. I couldn't move, but my mind was still working, I was still capable of thinking and Howard always said - is Tony - "

"Stark's fine," James said.

"Good, okay - Howard, he said that the serum affected my brain more than my body, that I should be able to achieve ultimate knowledge and enlightenment if I would only apply myself and drink better scotch," Steve said.

"Who's Howard?" Matt asked.

"Stark's dad. Steve always had a thing for douchebag brunettes," James answered with a snort.

"Stop it," Steve smiled, squeezing Matt's fingers. He wasn't Christopher but Matt didn't pull away. "I knew they wouldn't stop. I knew they'd get what they wanted and I couldn't stop them, so I tried to block them. I knew how the brain worked, sort of, with electrical signals and they kept shocking me so - I just pushed, every blast of voltage I used to just, move it. I had to hide it, hide myself and just...move it."

James huffed. "I don't think it works like that, punk."

"Obviously, but it did something or I wouldn't be here right now. I need to sleep. I need to sleep and not wake up under flourescent lights," Steve said. "Christopher...we can figure this out together if we have more time. He says it's not safe for you to be here."

Matt realized Steve was talking to James.

"I'm not going anywhere," James said.

"I don't know much and it hurts to try and piece it together right now because it's too bright," Steve said. "But I know Registration passed, I've been dead a year and you're Captain America."

Matt reached up and pulled off his glasses. "I'll need these back before I go," he said, feeling Steve take them from his hand.

"Thanks," Steve said.

There was a gaping hole in his chest where Christopher fit. He needed to hit something, to scream, but, fuck if he didn't want to make the stupid bastard's sacrifice worth something.

"Okay. We'll just stick to the plan we had for Christopher," James said with a hint of loss in his voice. Matt was surprised but comforted that James missed him, too. "Which means taking you back to your - his place and resuming the regular routines."

**** *** ** *

"Sam - I'm so glad you're here, damn I missed you."

This wasn't Christopher's hug - this wasn't Christopher - and he fisted his hands in *Steve*'s shirt and held on tight. "Fuck you, Cap."

"I've been hearing that a lot, damn. Did you know Christopher?" Steve asked, leaning back but keeping his hands on Sam's shoulders.

"I've been staying here since I found out," Sam replied. "You look...are you all right?" Steve's eyes were off, wrong.

Steve, and under the beard, it's *Steve*, shook his head slightly. "Not really. Show me the bedroom?"

Sam looked past him to Matt but the man was leaning against the doorway with his head down, visibly upset. Christopher must really be gone.

"The doc said he needs rest and fluids and rest," Matt called. "I have to go."

"Wait - " Steve turned and held out his hand, catching Matt's wrist easily. "Don't be a stranger. I'd like to get to know you when you're ready to meet me."

"I'll be around, don't worry, I just have to go," Matt replied. He squeezed Steve's hand firmly and shook out his cane.

Sam took Steve's arm and steadied him across the kitchen to Christopher's room. "I take it the whole test thing worked."

"I'm going to lie down and you're going to tell me what I've been doing since I got shot in the throat," Steve said.

"Sure, especially to the lying down part. Tell me how you feel, what did the doctor say?" Sam countered.

"It's like I'm having a migraine, my brain's trying to fix itself but there's - there's a lot going on in there and it hurts. I - I don't want to lose my hold, it's - I'm so sorry about Christopher, but I don't want - "

"Hey, hey," Sam said. God, Steve was back and - fuck - maybe he'd be able to help in all the ways he hadn't been able to help Christopher. He placed his hand on Steve's forehead to calm him once he'd stretched out on the bed. "Take a deep breath and hold it."

"Tell me what's happening. Bucky and Matt, did you know he was blind? Christopher didn't tell me he was blind," Steve said.

"You can talk to him?" Sam asked. Shit.

"Sort of. I don't know if I should try or if that's what's giving me the headache. I need to know - "

"You need to relax. You'll feel better if you relax. Christopher ate, probably, four hours ago, I'll get you a protein shake and turn some of these lights off," Sam said.

"Thank you. I'm really glad to see you. I mean, I was glad to see Bucky but Christopher says he's in some shit…I need to know about that shit and you - I trust you to give me the real story. What is the real story?" Steve asked.

"Close your eyes and breathe, I'll fill you in on what I know." He hesitated. "I got out after you…I haven't been in the game for over a year."

Steve nodded. "Good. That's good. I don't want my friends - I need to know everyone's okay before I can deal with anything. Wanda, Natasha, even Tony, I need a roll call…"

Sam held his tongue. "All three of them are fine. Is that all?"

Steve glanced at him. "I - he won't be around, I know he wouldn't - "

"Shut up. You know he cares," Sam hissed.

"Everything okay?" Luke's voice rumbled behind him and Sam winced when Steve instinctively slung the closest things within his reach, an alarm clock and glass respectively, at Luke's head. Luke caught the alarm clock but the glass shattered against his cheek. "Either Christopher's aim's gotten a lot better, or that's not him."

"Steve, this is Luke Cage. He's a friend of Christopher's," Sam introduced.

"Sorry about that. Jumpy," Steve said.

"I guess so. Christopher didn't make it?" Luke asked in a low voice.

"75-25," Steve replied. "I don't know how to fix it, I don't know how to make us fit."

"I don't know if there are instructions for this, Cap," Sam said finally, glancing at Luke and hoping that he would catch on to tread lightly.

"Right. Food and lights and then we'll talk. Luke, do you know enough about Christopher to pick up where Sam leaves off? Matt seemed a little compromised about the whole thing," Steve said.

Luke raised an eyebrow and mouthed 'compromised'? at Sam before he spoke. "Sure."

"Everything's out of order...I need something linear to try and put it together. I can figure this out, Jesus..." Steve murmured, absently making the sign of the cross after the curse.

Luke cleared his throat and reached over to flip off the desk lamp and turn on the dimmer closet light to help brighten the dim sunlight through the closed blinds. He motioned to a tray of cups from the local diner. "I thought Christopher would be here so I brought that Chai Tea shit he likes."

"Yes, please," Steve said before Sam could thank him. Sam handed him the appropriate cup and sat down in the smaller chair so Luke wouldn't collapse the larger armchair with his weight. He sipped before taking a full swallow. "I don't dislike it."

Luke and Sam exchanged worried looks.

Steve raised a hand to his head. "This is weird. I need to listen. Sam, you start. The last thing I remember was standing on the steps and then my throat exploding. What happened after that?"

"Okay," Sam said carefully. "You fell and everything went FUBAR. Natasha and Tony were beside you and they got you out of the main riot."

"Bucky?"

"Bucky went batshit and took out eighteen friendlies before he got to Rumlow. Tony never left your side. He swears he was with you until they put you in the coffin, he refused to believe you were dead until they closed the box," Sam said slowly.

"They were supposed to cremate me. Bruce knew, I - I was supposed to sign something...but I don't remember signing anything," Steve sighed. "Go on. So they buried me, what happened then?"

"The politics can wait, they have to. I turned in my wings, Wanda and Scott went underground with a ton of other people that were on your side of the debate. Natasha and James took over as the faces of the government-sanctioned teams. Everybody else scattered," Sam said.

"Shit," Steve sighed, deflating against the pillow. "Okay. Luke's turn. When did you meet Christopher?"

"Back up, what do you remember after getting shot?" Sam said. "Are you completely blank?"

Steve hesitated. "I remember a lab. Bright lights, too bright to be anywhere else. I remember seeing the chair, but not being in the chair. Wait." He closed his eyes and covered his face. "They asked me questions, they cut me. Okay. So they had me. Did I talk? I - I don't remember...I escaped."

"How?" Luke asked when Steve's scattered words come to a stop.

Steve flinched but didn't lower his hand. "I bit someone, ripped out their throat. Broke the restraints, punched and smashed. It was bloody."

"That sounds like what we found." Sam winced despite himself and was glad he hadn't seen what Luke did.

"So I got out," Steve said with a hissed breath. "If I don't remember, does that mean Christopher suffered through all that for me?"

"No, he didn't remember anything," Luke said quickly. "Matt would have said something. He found you, he was..."

"I know he's Daredevil," Steve said.

Sam gasped. "Murdock is - never mind, I'm going to forget I heard that."

Luke snorted and returned his attention to Steve. "Yeah, he found Christopher on patrol, bloody and freaked out in an alley. He didn't fight him; he said Christopher took one look at him in the suit and started praying and reciting numbers. He could tell right off that he was 'different' and with the Index the way it is, he took him to Claire."

"Nurse. She's a friend," Steve said vaguely. "Why did he help me?"

"Probably the Catholic stuff, some of the people in the ER thought Christopher was possessed because it was in Latin at first," Luke shrugged. "Claire asked me to come down because I'm stronger than most people and Christopher was pretty...clumsy."

Steve lowered his hand finally and moved his fingers to his necklace but didn't open his eyes. "He was scared. Matt was dangerous, he smelled like blood and looked like the devil. Claire, she was kind and calm. Jessica, she's sharp and snarly. Luke, steady and strong. Foggy, smart and loyal. Malcolm, funny and true. Karen and Trish, too cool for school." He wrinkled his face.

"Christopher always said that. He loves Karen and Trish," Luke said quietly.

"He's...we have to settle. We're not oil and water, we're just not mixing completely," Steve replied after a moment. "I might not remember what everyone looks like right away, but Christopher remembers. He knows the rhythm of their heartbeats, the smell of their shampoo. You showered at Jess' place this morning and you're drinking the coffee you brought for Matt," he said.

"Christopher's senses were overloaded at the beginning. Matt helped him filter and the balance was always a little off," Luke explained to Sam. "He didn't notice when Jess cut her hair, but he always knew when she changed shampoo."

 


End file.
